First vinyl died. Or so they said. Then it revived. So they saw. Choices in turntables, phono stages, tone arms and cartridges are far richer today than the gloomiest doomsayer could have predicted. With luxury headphones meanwhile, obituaries and front page news alike have remained strangely quiet. As though the average audio reviewer couldn't confess to doing it. If he did any at all.

Listening to headphones. Not the other thing. We won't wonder why. We'll merely guess that many audiophiles well informed about all the usual hifi paraphernalia might not recognize a number of the above upscale headphone models. Many hover around the $1.000 mark, some closer to $2.000. If you had no notion that consumer headphones could get this ambitious, perhaps it's time to get familiar. Today's example of this breed is a formerly Japan-only model, the current top effort by audio-technica, a company famous for its microphones, analogue pickups and headphones for both studio and consumer applications.

For years I've been an outspoken admirer of the firm's W-1000 model. I preferred it to Sennheiser's HD650, Grado's RS1, AKG's K-1000 with Stefan AudioArt wire harness to the voice coils and BeyerDynamic's DT880. By fortuitous happenstance or design, my Western Electric 408A-based HA-02 headphone tube amp from Yamamoto SoundCraft of Japan is sonically the perfect match for the W-1000s. The visual tie-in whereby both amp and cans use nearly identically stained Sashi Cherry wood is the gratuitous cherry on top. These photos show audio-technica's current W-Series lineup. The girl displays the W-1000X replacement for the W-1000s. It's nicknamed Grandioso and expected to sell for ca. $800.